Gentle Readers, what a long strange week it has been. There is so much going on, it’s easy to forget things. More and more I rely on my digital brain (it takes many forms, including the popular cloud version) to organize my kitchen life. Pictures have become a way of taking notes for me, from where I park in the airport to which kind of lotion to buy.

In honor of what may seem like a dependency on devices and the cloud, here are 3 More of my Favorite Things:

1. My phone. It’s a camera, and my means of recording the steps in cooking a recipe, the shot in the restaurant, and random grocery store finds. But it’s also my gateway to remembering my grocery list and what I put on the weekly menus. Yes, I have to look myself up sometimes. Incredibly convenient.

I love bacon this much. And coffee isn’t half bad either.

2. My iPad. A larger form factor, this serves a different purpose in the kitchen. Tablets sit nicely in cookbook holders, and they’re ideal for looking up recipes without squinting. Safely ensconced in a protective cover, I get far less powdered sugar and bacon grease on the tablet than the phone. Bonus!

My New Sous Chef: the iPad.

3. YouTube. A video can be worth well over a thousand words. I plan to get back into the business. Just the other night, as I destroyed my beloved jar opener attempting to loosen a particularly tricky salsa lid, I thought back to a vintage piece I did on 3 ways to open a jar. I went through two of them to free the salsa. Thank you digital brain.

How do you bring technology into your kitchen? Post a comment, send a tweet. I am here. Promise. Only a little virtualized.